Advocates for LGBT rights took concerns about the youngest daughter of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. to the Jilma Meneses, chief diversity officer at the university.

King co-lead a march against gay marriage in Atlanta, where she still lives, in 2004 and said her father "did not take a bullet" for gay rights.

“Folks in the community definitely have some issues with the comments
(King) has made about LGBT issues in the past,” Khalil Edwards, the
head of the Portland Friends of Lesbians and Gays Black Chapter, told The Oregonian.
“That was really the reason we wanted to talk to folks at PSU, to share
our concerns and get some understanding as to how that decision was
made. People have been hurt by those comments and those actions in the
past.”

King will speak at PSU at 6 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12. Tickets are $15 for the public.

We talked with Meneses Thursday about concerns the LGBT advocates raised, and why talking about racial equality is so hard in Portland. This interview has been edited for brevity.

Was King's history of negativity toward the LGBT community a part of the discussion about whether to invite her?

Initially we didn't know about that history. We understand now the concerns that people have over the march that she participated in a decade ago, but nonetheless we learned about it, and we talked about it and decided that we would still invite her after we spoke to her staff and I asked them how that evolved. My understanding... is that she would not participate in a march like that today.

We still want her to come and talk about her father's struggle for racial equality... that was really why we asked her to come.

The group of advocates you met with this week said they're planning to host events that coincide with King's visit to examine the intersection between African-American and LGBT issues. Do you see an intersection between those issues?

Absolutely, I do. And events will be planned together. We agreed with them, the folks that came over, that we would plan as a group... as a university and a community.

We have not decided yet what they're going to look like.

The conversation was a very cordial one and a very important one to have. We expressed to each other how important it is to have a safe dialogue.

Do you believe her past outspokenness against gay marriage in any way taints her message?

I would hope not... She's coming here to talk about her father's struggle for racial equality, about Black History Month.

This message, particularly about race equality, is so important here in Portland. African Americans make up such a small percentage of the population, but so many are disparaged.

How does the relatively small percentage of African Americans in Portland change the race conversation, as opposed to somewhere like Atlanta?

I think people have a much harder time talking about race in Oregon than they do in Atlanta, and that's why we have to have it, and it has to be open dialogue, and safe dialogue.

There are African-American communities in this area who feel like they are continuing to experience disparity.

Some of the discriminatory practices in Oregon are not as blatant, and that's why we need to talk about it. It's not just African Americans, it's also Hispanics and other groups.